The Reeve's Tale (28 page)

Mary shrugged. “I didn’t think he was gone far. Not until Gilbey’s horse was found missing.”

Frevisse looked at Perryn. “Where was Gilbey’s horse taken from?”

Careful not to look at his sister, Perryn said, “It was staked out to graze with his other one. In Farnfield.” The field that Matthew Woderove had lost to Gilbey. “Well away from the village, close to the wood,” Perryn said. “He could be away with no one likely to notice.”

‘At least he showed that much sense,“ Mary said.

‘Did he take anything with him?“ Frevisse asked her, curt again.

‘Just what he had with him when he came in from the field. No, he left the hoe, and good thing, too. All he took was what he was wearing and his scrip. A good leather bag, that was. Whoever did for him must have taken it, the bastard.“

Frevisse clamped down on her growing unfondness for Mary Woderove. Under all Mary’s passions of indignation and angers, there was a coldness to her that made Frevisse doubt she had ever really warmed to anyone except herself. More than that, Frevisse was beginning to suspect that she worked at keeping others hot with anger, the better to work them to her cold will, and not meaning to be worked, Frevisse said coldly, “Now. Tell me about Tom. When did you see him last?”

‘Tom,“ Mary echoed with bitter pain. ”Just because he loved me, no one minds that he was murdered!“

Refusing to be drawn into pointing out that if she did not care, she would not be asking questions about it, Frevisse repeated, “When did you see him last?”

‘Saturday midday.“ Brought to it, Mary gave the answer flatly. ”I keep telling people that.“

‘You’d been telling him he ought to leave here, to run. Would you have run with him?“

Mary gave her brother an angry glance. “I’d have gone to him but not with him. I meant to stay here a while.”

‘Making trouble over the Woderove holding, despite you knew it would do you no good,“ Frevisse said.

Mary jerked her chin at her brother. “Why should he get off easy? Him and the others that hate me around here. If nothing else, I want my harvest off it.”

‘Why not have Tom stay until after the harvest then?“ Perryn asked, goaded. ”Then you could have gone off together with money in hand.“

‘Because I was that mad I wasn’t thinking that far ahead,“ Mary snapped back at him. ”I just saw you wanted Tom ruined, and I wanted him away before you could.“

‘Did he tell you he was going to run?“ Frevisse asked.

‘Nay. At the last all I’d had out of him was that he had to think on it a while.“

‘When you didn’t see him again, did you think he’d gone off after all?“

Mary completely refused that thought. “He’d not have gone off without saying to me he was. I thought he was still angry at me for pushing him, that’s all, and when I’d had enough of him staying away, I went to his place.”

‘When?“

‘Sunday. Early. When most folk were to Mass, so I wouldn’t have to see anyone.“

‘He wasn’t there? Or any sign of him?“ Frevisse asked.

‘Course he wasn’t there. From all they’re saying, he was dead by then, wasn’t he? But I didn’t know that, did I? All I could tell was that he’d not run. Naught was gone that he would have taken with him. So I reckoned he was about, and all I need do was wait till he came back to me.

He always came back to me. But this time…“ Her mouth suddenly trembled, making her look like a small child fighting off tears; and piteously as a small child, she said, ”… this time he never did. I never saw him again ever.“

Unmoved by Mary’s sorrow for her own pain, Frevisse asked, “Has there been anyone angry out of the ordinary with Tom? Was there anyone he was afraid of?”

‘Tom? He wasn’t afraid of anyone, was Tom. But, aye, there was someone angry at him out of the ordinary. Gilbey Dunn. Frighted for his wife with her namby town-face and hot skirts. As if Tom would have looked at that flinty bit of bitchdom.“

‘Mary!“ Perryn said.

‘You think she doesn’t know about those kind?“ Mary jerked her chin at Frevisse. ”I’ll warrant she knows more about them than you do. Flinty bitches.“

Determined to be untouched by Mary’s venom, Frevisse said, “What are you going to do now that Tom is dead?”

‘Do?“ Mary’s brittle anger was back. ”What
can
I do, now I’ve been robbed of everything? I’ll live somehow. I’ll…“ She made a sudden, unexpected struggle against the anger, bowed her head, and said, strangling a little on the submission, ”We have to accept what comes to us. People die. It happens. Father Edmund’s been saying that, to help me. He’s been kind.“ She gave her brother a sour look. ”Unlike some.“ She lowered her eyes again and said stiffly, ”I just want to take what’s left me and make do. That’s what Father Edmund’s been helping me to see. That I have to thank God for what I have and make do with it.“

And Father Edmund had better take care, Frevisse thought without trying to curb the unkindness, or Mary would very likely next be trying to make do with him.

Chapter 19

In the pause after she had dismissed Mary, as she watched her walk away, Frevisse considered her, so mean-spirited a woman that her grief was only for herself and her lost hopes, her concerns only for the wrongs done to her, not more than a jot for the wrongs done to her husband or her lover.

To put both murders onto her would be no grief at all…

Frevisse pulled back from the thought’s ugliness. Dislike was proof of nothing in this matter and, besides, she could see no way that Mary profited by Tom Hulcote’s death.

From her husband’s, in some ways, yes…

Glumly Perryn said, now Mary was out of hearing, “You were wondering who didn’t wish me well. There’s one. Nor Gilbey neither. She’d see us both hung and like it.” And before Frevisse could answer that, “Here be Bert and the rest.”

The four men were coming out of a narrow way between two messuages, probably the straightest way in from wherever Dickon had found them in the fields, Bert Fleccher first, rake over his shoulder, and Walter Hopper not far behind him with Hamon trailing after, carrying two rakes and a water bag, and finally John Rudyng, talking to Dickon trotting beside him.

Longer-strided, John overtook the others as they reached the oak, all of them red-faced with hurry, pulling off their broad-brimmed hats respectfully and bowing as they came into the shade. With the sun higher, there was less shade than there had been, and to be in it they had to stand nearer to the bench than Frevisse liked, but disappointed in herself to find she had grown nice over sweat nor wanting to put them off answering her easily, she kept her discomfort to herself, thanked Dickon for his service, to which he awkwardly bowed and went to sit aside on the shady grass, eager to listen, while Frevisse turned to the men and said, “Did you indict Gilbey Dunn for the crowner this morning?”

‘Pah!“ The exclamation was Bert’s but all their faces agreed with him as he went on disgustedly, ”Not likely. We told him what we told him yesterday, that there wasn’t enough to warrant finding anybody guilty of anything.“

‘Outlander.“ John Rudyng put fulsome scorn into the word. ”Coming in and making it seem we’d no sense over something as fool as that belt and hood.“

‘He went to arrest Gilbey Dunn anyway,“ Frevisse said.

Bert’s jaw worked as if he was about to spit while Walter Hopper answered, “So the boy said.” He nodded at Dickon. “But it wasn’t by our doing.”

‘We knew that’s what he was about, though,“ Bert said. ”It’s why we went fieldward, so Gilbey wouldn’t see us and grudge against us the worse for it later. He would, the…“ He thought better of what he had been about to say.

‘But the boy says Gilbey’s gone off?“ Walter asked.

‘To Banbury, according to his wife,“ Frevisse answered.

‘ ’T’wouldn’t stick anyway, the arrest, without there was a jury said so, and we didn’t,“ John said.

‘Nay,“ Bert agreed, regretful. ”Not but it’d be sport to see old Simon and Gilbey sweat it a bit.“ He gave Perryn the side of a grin with teeth missing from it. Perryn gave him a stare back that made Bert’s grin widen. ”Not worth giving that crowner fellow the pleasure of it, though.“

‘Hauled us in there like none had aught to do in a day but him,“ John Rudyng said resentfully. ”Then jawed at us because we wouldn’t do what he said. Sent us off, saying maybe he’d look to arrest us next.“

‘Pah!“ said Bert.

‘When you found Tom Hulcote’s body,“ Frevisse said, ”you saw the hood and belt there with it?

‘Oh, aye,“ said Bert, and the other three men nodded agreement.

‘Where?“ she asked.

They looked at each other to see who would answer and left it to Walter to say, “The belt was beside him.”

‘How?“ Frevisse asked.

‘How?“ he repeated blankly.

‘How was it beside him? As if it had fallen there, or as if it had been put where it was?“

‘What would be the difference?“ Hamon asked.

For answer, Perryn unbuckled his own leather belt before Frevisse could explain. “Like this,” he said and stepped forward, letting go of the belt so it fell away behind him to lie long across the grass. “Or like this.” He turned and picked it up, wound it deftly into a coil that would have fitted easily into a belt pouch, then tossed it away from him. It uncoiled as it fell but when it had fallen was still was looped around on itself at one end.

‘Do it again,“ Walter said.

Perryn did, coiling and tossing his belt three more times. The pattern it fell in was different each time, but every time it stayed more looped on itself than less.

‘Now, just let it fall again,“ Walter said.

Perryn did, three times more, and every time it fell stretched out, no looping.

‘It was coiled and tossed then,“ Walter said, ”because I mind me it was looped where it lay.“

John and Hamon nodded agreement to that, and Bert said, “Besides, how could a belt like Gilbey’s have come undone enough to fall off? The way it’s run through the buckle, then the end wound around and through on itself and hangs down to his knees, the daft man, how would it come loose enough to fall and him not notice his tunic hanging around him? But we already thought the belt was no evidence anyway.”

‘Best to be sure,“ Perryn said. He looked at Frevisse. ”My hood was lying by him, too, when Dickon found him.“

‘ ’Twas over his face when we came,“ Hamon said.

‘Dickon put it there,“ Frevisse said. ”Was he wearing a hood of his own? Tom, I mean.“

‘No. In this weather, who needs a hood most of the time?“ Bert asked back.

‘Which of you took the belt and hood?“

‘None of us. It was Father Edmund did,“ John Rudyng said, ”and told us to say naught about them to anyone.“

‘Why? Why say nothing about them?“

Uneasy looks passed among the men, with sideways glances at Perryn, and no one seeming willing to answer.

‘Well?“ Frevisse prodded.

Walter, staring at the oak trunk somewhere above her head and well away from Perryn, said, “I suppose it’s because we all knew whose they were, soon as we saw ‘em, and so did Father Edmund. Didn’t look like a good thing to be putting about the village, with nothing that could be done about it anyway until the crowner was here, Father Edmund said, and ’Be quiet about this,‘ he said, and we could all see the sense to it, so we did.”

‘What Father Edmund said,“ Bert put in less moderately, ”was we were all to keep closed about it or there’d be penance on us like we’d not believe.“

Frevisse had been close to asking how—no matter that it was good sense to keep quiet about the hood and belt— they had managed to do it, but threat of penance from their priest and their certainty that he meant it was answer enough. It had even sufficed to stopper Bert, and her estimation of Father Edmund rose.

But she still had little more than what she had already guessed about the hood and belt and had been already fairly certain how illegal Montfort’s move against Gilbey was. Unhappily, she could think of nothing else to ask and thanked the men and dismissed them back to their work.

‘To the alehouse for me,“ Bert said as they began to move off. ”I’ve had my haymaking for the day.“

‘No more need to lie low, that’s it, now you know there’s going to be no dust kicked up over Gilbey,“ Hamon mocked.

‘Aye,“ Bert mocked back. ”And when you’ve learned to duck as well as I have, you’ll look a fool less often than you do, Hamon Otale.“

‘Hamon,“ Frevisse called after him, remembering something. ”And Walter. A moment more, if it please you.“

Quick looks passed between all four men before Bert and John Rudyng kept on their separate ways, though Bert with long backward looks until the alehouse doorway took him while Walter and Hamon, taking off their hats again, turned back into the shade.

‘The day before Tom Hulcote’s body was found, what did you go to the reeve’s house for, Walter?“ Frevisse asked.

Walter regarded her blankly a moment, the question taking him by surprise, before he answered, “To find out when Simon would want my work this week.”

‘A half-day’s weeding of the lord’s beans yesterday,“ Perryn said, ”that you still owe, what with being a juror instead.“